Category Archives: me

Johanna points out Fool’s Gold, one of the better looking upcoming OEL manga from Toykopop. You can read some of the previews here. Tokyopop is putting out a ton of product, and there are only a few series that I’m finding interesting. I already like Dramacon, The Dreaming seems like it will be really good, Sorcerers and Secretaries is appealing, and Mail Order Ninja looks like a cute all-ages title.

I dedicated myself to vegging out over the weekend to recover from all the teaching that I did last week. I knit two hats, watched a ton of TV, went to the comic book store, and ate a dagoba bar. I’m not sure if I feel totally ready to teach 3 classes tomorrow, but I think I rid myself of the urge to scream when talking about interlibary loan for the 40+ time this semester. I decided to buy myself a present at the comic book store and the SHIELD powerpoint reminded me of how cool and mod Jim Steranko’s art was. So I’ve been kicking back and reading Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. It is quite delightful. It is pretty hilarious that even though Fury has advanced spy-gadget suits to fight in, he always ends up not wearing a shirt. I would really like a gun that fires grenades and a fire absorbing cigar.

So I’ve been having fun visiting with my little sister – we ran around, saw two movies (Mirrormask and Wallace and Gromit), went shoe shopping, and I think I found some possible wedding shoes. Now I don’t have to worry about not having shoes when I get married in around seven months. I am nothing if not prepared!

I came down with an icky cold last week, and I thought it was all better but I started feeling sick again yesterday. Does anyone remember the Anastasia Krupnik book where’s she’s obsessed with the possibility that she’s caught leprosy? She keeps checking out a medical book from the public library that lists all the symptoms and concludes that because her earlobes itch, she’s destined to move to a leper colony. I watched Papillon a few days ago, where Steve McQueen escapes the horrible french penal colony system and winds up on an island set aside for lepers briefly. Even when dealing with lepers, McQueen is the essence of cool.

I don’t have leprosy, but I always tend to assume the worst when I get sick. So since my throat is sore, I’m wondering if I have strep or the black death. Hopefully I won’t infect my sister when she comes for a visit tomorrow

Good and Bad Things at the Reference Desk today:

Bad – People acting miffed I say I won’t watch over their backpacks for them. Seriously, they shouldn’t want to leave their stuff at the reference desk anyway, as I’ve been known to walk around and help people find books in the stacks. I don’t want to be responsible for any random belongings left behind the reference desk. What if all the librarians where I work are secretly kleptomaniacs? Don’t be leaving your backpack with people you don’t know!

Good – I managed to absolutely thrill a student when I showed him the non-English language news sources in Lexis Nexis.

Bad – Obscure ancient science journal abbreviations that don’t appear in my handy reference book of journal abbreviations. What’s with all the journal title abbreviations? Who started this? Was it scientists whose time was too valuable to type out the full name of the journal? And doesn’t is suck when the journal may be in a different language, so ann. may mean annals or annales or annalen? I totally cheat with science reference questions sometimes and e-mail the professor in my family for help, especially when I don’t have any other librarians around to ask.

Bad – Someone looking for a government document who isn’t sure what the format of the document is, but it has something to do with geology somewhere in the New England area.

Good – Some of the students in a class I taught earlier are following up, stopping by the reference desk or e-mailing me for help.

Bad – While I understand why someone want their child to practice the violin, it is rather difficult for me to answer a rather complicated reference question about psychology research while being serenaded loudly with selections from the first Suzuki book. Could people call the library after practice? I find it hard to try to think of possible research strategies when I have to listen to an extremely loud badly out of tune rendition of “The Old Grey Goose is Dead”. Three people are waiting in line for help. At one point, I end up describing the search features of PsycInfo from memory on the phone while silently demonstrating for someone else how to search MLA at the desk.

I suppose any Monday when you don’t have to go into work must be a Good Monday. On the last day of the long weekend I went downtown to the Windsor Button because they were having a 20% off yarn sale. It takes a 20% off sale for me to not look at a skein of yarn there and put it back because I can get it cheaper online. I bought some Noro Silk Garden and some Malabrigo for hats. I also bought some foundation I needed and some overpriced lip gloss so I could get the bonus gift from Clinique. Yay for free(ish) makeup! I found some comics I’d been looking for, I’d missed the third issue of Desolation Jones when it first came out and I finally managed to track down a copy of Sugar Sugar Rune which I’ve been looking for in bookstores without success.

I wrapped up the day by going to see Mirrormask, which was lovely. It was just what I was expecting – moving Dave McKean illustrations. There were a couple scenes where the small budget showed, but it was a beautifully surreal movie punctuated with random bits of humor. I got to the movie late so I missed the first couple minutes, but I quickly got caught up in the story of Helena who journeys to a strange world and gets caught up in the quest for the Mirrormask.

I’m back from my mini-vacation. I saw 3 movies, read 4 books and several volumes of manga, ate at my favorite mexican restaurant, bought a bunch of random turquoise clothing on sale while I was waiting to get my bag back, got my bag back, and sent out around 2/3rds of my save the date cards for my wedding. So other than the stress of not having any of my stuff for several days, it was a nice break.

I had a very weird airplane experience yesterday. The morning before my trip, someone called me and told me that I was being bumped to a 4:00 flight. Then when I arrived at Logan airport, I was put on my original 2:00 flight, I had to run to reach the gate. I was the last person on the plane, and they took away my carry-on bag since there was no overhead space. I had a very bad feeling about this, and I should have given into my first instinct, which was to open up that bag and take out a few items. Now, my bag is gone and the tracking number I was given for that bag doesn’t seem to work. I’m more than a little miffed, because I had the save the dates for my wedding in that bag (which I was hoping to mail while I was on vacation) as well as my precious DVDs of Ong Bak and Kung Fu Hustle. The clothes I can live with losing, but it will be a bummer if I have to reorder my save the dates again. I really wanted to send them out soon, just to give people warning that they might have to plan a trip to the midwest next summer.

Server went down due to the power outage in L.A. I still can’t get into my e-mail.

One of my projects at work that has been hanging over my head finally launched today, I am so relieved. I knew I was stressed, but I didn’t realize how stressed I was until it was unveiled. I’m sure some revision will be needed, but sometimes things are finished enough that it doesn’t make sense to not to make them publically available. Now I can get back to my normal workload at this time of the semester, scheduling a ton of library instruction classes and preparing for workshops.

I’m going out of town in a little bit to visit the future Mr. TangognaT, so blogging might be light because I’m on vacation. Or I might blog a whole bunch, because I’ll be on vacation. It’s a mystery!

I got the save the dates for my wedding in the mail today! Somehow even though we’ve reserved a park and are investigating caterers, the whole thing seems much more real now that I have actual stationery related to the wedding. I’m sort of bummed out that the muppet stamps aren’t out yet. But perhaps it would be too goofy to use muppet stamps on wedding-related mailings.

So I’m back home in Champaign. My best friend from high school is getting married today, and my Mom is going to host some sort of after party tonight where between 30-60 people may or may not show up. I’m worried that Mom will want to keep the future Mr. Tangognat, as so far he has cleaned up the patio, shed, and driveway. He has fried won-tons, marinated steak, and made marinated mushroom hors d’oeuvres. He has painted parts of the front door yellow and raked gravel and pulled weeds.
I think I’ve gotten off lightly, as I have only made cookies, arranged flowers, pulled off painter’s tape, ran errands, and consulted about interior design.

The future Mr. Tangognat and I visited the place where we’re thinking of having the wedding, and liked it. I’ll post some pictures later. We also tried out some samples of wedding cake. Weirdly enough, both the future Mr. Tangognat and my step-father are both fixated on German Chocolate Cake, which I think is too heavy for a June wedding. So we are thinking of having a very small German chocolate cake, another small not as heavy chocolate cake, and a large citrus berry cake which is topped by white chocolate (this was very light and yummy and I thought it would be refreshing for the people who are eating cake outside next June).